One More Song Before Everything Changes | Outside Lands 2026
One More Song Before Everything Changes
Outside Lands 2026, goodbyes, firsts, old songs becoming new memories, and one very late night because apparently there is no such thing as enough GRiZ.
There are weekends you plan because you want to see the lineup.
And then there are weekends that quietly become about something else entirely.
Outside Lands was supposed to be three days of music in Golden Gate Park. Outfits. Drinks. Dancing. Running between stages. Eating whatever looked good. Losing each other in crowds and somehow finding each other again.
Instead, it became a goodbye.
Two of my good friends, Andy and Kira, are moving to Hawaii this week, where they're beginning an entirely new chapter of their lives and starting a family.
So this was it.
Our last hurrah before everything changes.
Not a sad goodbye exactly. The best kind, really. The kind where the reason someone is leaving is beautiful and you are genuinely happy for them, even while some selfish little part of you would like life to leave your favorite people exactly where you put them.
But life doesn't do that.
People fall in love. People move. Families begin. Cities change. Kids grow up.
And apparently sometimes the appropriate response is to put on leopard-print pants and spend three days dancing in a foggy park.
I recommend it.
We knew something was changing.
So instead of pretending otherwise,
we celebrated the hell out of it.
The Weekend Started Loud
Friday did not gently invite us into festival weekend.
It kicked the door open.
The Outside Lands daily lineup stacked the weekend with the kind of schedule that makes you start negotiating with time itself.
And then came Subtronics.
And GRiZ.
Listen.
I am not one of those people.
Because after getting GRiZ at Outside Lands, my conclusion was:
Not enough GRiZ.
Fortunately, the festival weekend didn't have to end when the festival gates did.
GRiZ was also part of the official Outside Lands Night Shows , so after Day One we headed to The Independent for his solo set.
Because sometimes being a responsible adult means realizing you've already danced all day, your feet are approaching litigation, tomorrow contains another entire festival...
...and going to another show anyway.
Smaller room. Closer crowd. Sweatier. Louder.
Friday quietly turned into Saturday and none of us particularly cared.
And Then The xx Made Me Cry
Saturday belonged to The xx.
Or at least one part of me still feels like it does.
Because they played “Angels.”
And I cried.
Not cute movie crying either.
The kind that surprises you because one second you're standing in a field watching a band and the next some song has located a tiny unlocked door inside you.
That's what live music can do that streaming never quite can.
You can listen to a song a hundred times alone.
In the car. While cooking. Walking somewhere. Getting ready. Trying not to think about someone. Thinking about someone anyway.
But then you hear it live, surrounded by thousands of strangers who somehow become part of the memory, and the song changes.
For those few minutes, everyone is listening to the same thing.
Maybe remembering completely different people.
Maybe mourning something.
Maybe falling in love.
Maybe thinking about who they used to be the last time they heard it.
Music collapses distance.
Between strangers.
Between friends.
Between who you were
and who you are now.
My Daughter's First Festival
And then there was Sunday.
This one got me for an entirely different reason.
It was my daughter's first music festival.
There is something wonderfully strange about getting older and suddenly experiencing things you've done before through your child's eyes.
I've been to festivals.
I've stood in crowds.
I've waited for artists I love.
I've had songs permanently tattoo themselves onto certain chapters of my life.
But watching her experience it for the first time made the whole thing feel new again.
And then Empire of the Sun played:
Our song.
Of course they did.
In that moment there wasn't really a lineup anymore.
There was just me.
My daughter.
And our song floating across Golden Gate Park.
That's the sneaky thing about music.
You think you're collecting songs.
You're actually collecting timestamps.
A few notes begin and suddenly you're back inside another car, another apartment, another summer, another version of your life.
And sometimes you're lucky enough to stand beside someone you love while an old song becomes a brand-new memory.
I'll keep that one.
Festival Side Quests
Outside Lands isn't really designed for sitting politely in front of stages for three days.
It's its own tiny temporary city.
We wandered.
We ate.
We found things.
We collected sponsor treats.
We inevitably carried around approximately 400 tiny objects that seemed absolutely essential at the time.
And yes, we absolutely made our way through Grass Lands presented by Zig-Zag .
Because no festival itinerary is complete without wandering into an entirely different little universe inside the original universe.
The Zig-Zag stop was particularly good.
We got some genuinely great things from them, which remains one of my favorite festival phenomena:
arriving with one bag and somehow leaving with enough tiny treasures to suggest you've won a very niche game show.
One More Song Before the Page Turns
When I look through the pictures now, the performances aren't actually what I notice first.
It's us.
Arms around each other.
Ridiculous poses.
Leopard print.
Festival wristbands.
Someone holding a drink.
Someone laughing.
Someone halfway through saying something.
The ordinary evidence that we were there together.
Because this weekend existed inside a very particular little pocket of time.
Before Hawaii.
Before the move.
Before their next chapter.
Before my daughter's first festival became something she had already done.
Before “Angels” became the song that made me cry at The xx.
Before “Walking on a Dream” became the song my daughter and I heard together at Outside Lands.
Before Friday night turned into GRiZ at The Independent because apparently we had not danced enough.
We knew something was ending.
And instead of pretending otherwise, we celebrated the hell out of it.
Take the picture.
Wear the ridiculous pants.
Stay for the song.
Go to the second show.
Dance when your feet hurt.
Tell your friends you're going to miss them.
Cry when The xx plays “Angels.”
Stand beside your daughter when your song comes on.
Because life is constantly moving people into their next chapters.
And sometimes you get one last weekend together before the page turns.
Outside Lands was ours.
Three days in Golden Gate Park.
One very late night at The Independent.
A first festival.
A goodbye.
A few tears.
An unreasonable amount of dancing.
And enough music to stitch the whole thing together.
Hawaii gets them next.
But for one last weekend,
we got them.
And we made it count.